Psikologi dan budaya

Ahli antropologi psikologi

tertarik untuk menjawab

pertanyaan-pertanyaan

seperti bagaimana

kebiasaan menonton

televisi anak-anak

mempengaruhi struktur

kepribadian mereka, dan

bagaimana kepribadian ini

mempengaruhi bagian-

bagian lain dari kultur.

Margaret Mead

mengabdikan banyak dari

karier dan waktunya dalam

bidang kajian antropologi

psikologi: bagaimana

kultur mempengaruhi

proses dan tumbuh

kembang/pendewasaan

seseorang

pengantar

Kita mengkaji proses psikologis (mental) sebagai sebuah

proses sebagaimana mereka dibentuk di konteks budaya

yang berbeda.

Pertama, kajian-kajian psikologi dalam budaya, pemahaman

tentang konsep diri, dan proses-proses psikologi seperti belajar,

berfikir dan emosi.

Kedua, isu seksualitas lintas budaya

Psychology 1

Psikologi adalah suatu istilah umum (suatu payung payung) untuk banyak proses tingkah laku manusia dan mental yang beragam secara budaya.

Proses mental meliputi:

• kepribadian: karakteristik unik pribadi dan perilaku seseorang

• pemikiran: cara berpikir, memahami, menyelesaikan masalah dan mengingat

• Persepsi: pengorganisasian dan interpretasi atas informasi yang masuk (stimulus)

• Emosi: pernyataan perasaan yang didalamnya memasukkan aspek psikologis, kognitif dan berbagai komponen ekspresi.

• Pembelajaran: pengembangan kemampuan, kapasitas dan perilaku

• Mental illness (sakit mental): kesalahan adaptasi atau disfungsi pola berfikir dan berperilaku

Psikologi telah banyak mengkaji aspek tersebut pada tataran individu, tetapi

antropologi memiliki fokus yang berbeda.

Antropologi fokus pada “ beberapa cara yang digunakan oleh individu secara

bersama”= antropologi psikologi.

• Fokus pada: bagaimana budaya berpengaruh terhadap kepribadian, atau

berbagai aspek sebagaimana dikaji dalam psikologi.

• Apakah proses-proses tersebut berifat kultural atau alamiah? Masih banyak

perdebatan………

Psychology 2

Beberapa permasalahan penting keterkaitan psikologi dan antropologi

• Psikolog tidak mendapat pembelajaran yang cukup untuk memahami

konsep kebudayaan dalam proses studinya.

• Kajian-kajian antropologi, terkait berbagai tema, telah berlangsung

lama tetapi tanpa memperhatikan kajian dalam psikologi

Banyak buku pengantar psikologi telah memberikan porsi tentang

kajian lintas budaya tetapi pada dasarnya masih sangat terbatas.

Psikologi lintas budaya, sejauh yang kita amati, masih bias budaya

barat dan melupakan budaya timur.

.

Culture, Personality & Self

Bagaimana individu mengembangkan kepribadiannya?

Dalam antropologi, banyak kajian tentang pola asuh anak, pola sosialisasi anak, berbagai

praktik adat istiadat (jawa, Bali, Papua, dll), kajian lintas dan perbandingan antar budaya

Sebagai contoh dalam hal pengasuhan anak: pada suku tertentu, pada malam hari anak

dan ibu tidur bersama, di suku lain terpisah.

Pada suku tertentu, waktu seorang ibu lebih banyak digunakan diluar rumah, pada

masyarakat lain, di dalam rumah,

Ritus peralihan terkait dengan siklus hidup anak (dibeberapa wilayah, terjadi praktik-

praktik ini. Ritus memisahkan kehidupan anak dari ibunya, memisahkan kehidupan

anak-anak ketika menjelang dewasa, dll)

Tradisi memisahkan ibu dan anak laki-laki lebih dini dibandingkan dengan anak

perempuan

Margaret Mead, Puberty, and Gender

Teori Mead : gender is culturally constructed (Student of Franz Boas).

Studied sex and gender

Coming of Age in Samoa

• Mengkaji konstruksi budaya tentang pubertas

• Faham yang berlaku: seks dan gender murni biologis, Mead tidak setuju dengan konsep ini.

• kesimpulan: banyak aspek perilaku pubertas adalah konstruksi budaya.

Kajian-kajian yang lain menunjukkan bahwa gender adalah konstruksi kultural

Diskusi:

film

National Culture to Cultural Themes

Many attempts have been made to describe the general psychological

make-up of a people.

To bring these studies into context, we need to look at both national

character and national culture as concepts

National character studies grew out of an effort by anthropologists to make their discipline relevant to the World War II war effort, helping the United States to understand its enemies, its allies, and its citizens better

• Ruth Benedict’s analyses of the Japanese are the classic of the national character, but she was not alone in this work. For instance:

• Geoffrey Gorer suggested the swaddling hypothesis “where the discomfort produced by the Russian practice of tightly swaddling infants led to suspicious, fearful adults cowed by authority”.1

• Erich Fromm suggested that the German attraction to Hitler stemmed from an "authoritarian personality" which feared the unpredictability of democracy”.2

1 (Collins, S.G. (n.d.) Culture on the front lines: National character, evolution, and emergence. Retrieved January 1, 2009 from http://upress.kent.edu/Ammar/14%20Collins.htm)2 Andrew Buckser, A. & Christodoulakis, c. (2006) Anthropology 341/Sociology 341: National character studies : Lecture outline. Retrieved January 1, 2009 from http://www.cla.purdue.edu/courses/anth341/cpl14.htm

Ruth Benedict

Patterns of Culture (1934)

Assumed each culture produces a dominant personality and stated this about three cultures (Armchair anthropology)

• Zuni (a Pueblo culture of the SW of United States)

• She described as aesthetic and mild

• She labeled as Apollonian (as drawn from Nietzsche’s use of Greek prototypes)

• Kwakiutl (a people of the NW Coast, today called Kwa Kwaka’ Wakw)

• She described as aggressive and competitive

• She labeled as Dionysian

• Dobu (a people of eastern New Guinea and involved in kula rings

• She described as fearful and paranoid

• She discussed the role of witchcraft in creating their fears

Tries to elevate folk ethnography to a science

Studies culture at a distance during WWII

• Japan: aesthetic and military

• The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946)• Critics say culture is more complex and anthropology has discarded the concept of national character (personality)

National culture remains a topic of discussion:

The idea of that which is shared by most of the people of a nation, overarching regional

culture, promoted by radio and television

Water cooler discussions of latest popular TV show

Sameness and Othering

In Cambodia, the Khmer were known as a gentle, friendly, artistic people.

They were Theravada Buddhists who valued all life

When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 19775-1979 a genocide wherein priests, intellectuals, former government officials and the entire middle class was massacred.

• This was accomplished by murder, starvation and forced labor

• An estimated 1.7 million people were killed

• Many of the leaders are only now being put on trial

• The story is portrayed in the film, The Killing Fields

How did this massacre become validated by the Khmer Rouge?

Othering: The process by which the basic principles of another culture (sub-culture or group) are demonized.

The Khmer Rouge used the hierarchical aspects of Cambodian society to reinforce the hard line message

The Importance of Cultural Themes

Today anthropologists look for the major psychological themes of a

culture (the basic principles by which everyone plays out his or her life)

The focus is on those identified by the members of the cultural group

themselves and away from external labels

Often looked at as pairs of opposites by many anthropologists

(ironically a theme of Western cultures to divide this way).

Examples include:

• In Japan, inside (uchi) and outside (soto) is how they see themselves

• Peaceful (Dani) vs. Fierce (Yanomamo): While fighting is seen in both

cultures, daily life for the Yanomano is tense and aggressive, while for

the Dani, calm and relaxed.

• Individualism vs. Groupism: Americans are raised to be individualistic;

Japanese are raised to sacrifice for the group good

• This is changing in Japan

• Mister Baseball

Focus Culture

Vietnam is the focus group for this chapter (although a nation-state and not a culture)

Once divided into South and North Vietnam, today is ruled as socialist government

by the Communist Party

Village farming is prevalent, but the French introduced plantation agriculture

Today, ties with the US are strengthening

Little anthropological research has been published for this country.

Built on family ties, extended families and a worship of ancestors (as well as

Mahayana Buddhism and Confucianism)

• These religions emphasize a balance between yang and yin

• Today a yang of Chinese-oriented Confucianism and a yin of egalitarian village

life

There are several fundamental times of Vietnamese cultures:

Ly: The idea of a basic order in the universe

Hieu: Filial piety, moral debt children owe their parents

De: Proper behavior between brothers. Younger submissive to older & women to

all men (Confucian)

Nighia: Proper behavior to fulfill Confucian obligations

Nhan and tinh: Buddhist virtues, in some contrast to the Confucian virtues. These

terms are associated with compassion

Privacy and Self

The emphasis on the emic (native) way of thinking about personhood as seen today is called indigenous psychologies and ethnopsychology

One current arena of study is the boundary between self and others (what is defined as privacy). Two types of privacy norms

• Limits access to standard behaviors (elimination, sex and the like) as well as body parts (genitalia, face and the like)

• The other deals with access to behavior that is private, personal and expressive (freedom of expression)

People are not born with an ability to separate themselves from the environment Not born to see themselves as an object

Not born to react to themselves

Not born to appraise or evaluate their selves

They learn this through development of self-awareness

Learning Styles

One study of how children learn was conducted by Peter Opie in England.

He noted that there was the approved learning of controlled by adults

(such as nursery rhymes)and the learning of ‘school rhyme’

Heider noted that among the Dani there is no explicit teaching, it is

observation/practice that is the teaching method

Teaching and learning styles

Culture of Acquisition

• Acquire knowledge as a body of knowledge (college)

• The idea that an authority transmits to the uninformed

Situated practice (the style of teaching) associated with the culture of acquisition

• The learning itself can be called situated learning

• Apprenticeship" learning

• Learn by watching, then by taking on increasingly difficult tasks

• This is how we first learn language

Cognition

How people think, learn, and organize knowledge

Example:

• Stars in the night sky—different cultures see different groupings and give different names and

meanings

• Different color names

• Different names for body parts

Cognitive Style and Intelligence

• Heath looked at how two separate U.S. communities taught their children

• White community: Children quizzed, adults knew the answers

• Black community: Children asked questions demanding creative responses

• Implications

• Children of the white community were familiar with the types of questions on standardized

tests and scored higher

• Children of the black community had no experience with this type of questioning

Intelligence (definition of intelligence is hard to develop)

I.Q. tests are culture-specific, do not have pan-cultural validity

Gardner suggests 7 intelligences (review page 159).

• Theory of "multiple intelligences"

• Intelligence is not a single skill; there are different sorts of intelligences

• There is a difference between "education" and "knowledge"

Hanson states that Americans have an "addiction to testing" which influences how we define

ourselves and our society

Organization of Knowledge

This area of study is often called ethnosemantics (a sub-set is ethnolinguistics) or cognitive anthropology

All cultures make categories. All cultures rely on the elementary cognitive process of

category making

There is no system of categories more correct; all have their foundations in cultural understandings.

That said, cross-culturally, the categories are remarkable similar

Examples of categories found in all cultures: Color categories (see Berlin and Kay)

Classification of living things: generally very similar to the scientific one

Kinship classification: More on the details in Chapter 9

Facial expressions and eye contact across cultures

The study of kinesics includes facial expressions, gaze, head movements, and posture.

Facial expressions can include: winks, blinks, eyebrow movements, smiles, frowns, pursed lips, pouts, lip compressions, and so forth.

All cultures have rules by which we are expected to show when feeling certain emotions. These are called display rules

• Masking is when you hide your emotion (poker face, for instance)

• Muting is when the emotion is shown but not to the degree it is felt.

• In some cultures emotion is muted because of pain

• If we don’t know the display rules of a particular culture, we think we

know what someone is feeling

Are there universals for emotional facial expressions?

Paul Ekman is famous for studying this.

• Darwin said yes, Margaret Mead said no.

• Ekman went to highlands of PNG in 1965(most isolated from

Westerners at the time and now he says yes)

Emotions 1

Facial expressions and eye contact across cultures (continued)

Ekman identified 6 universal expressions: anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happy, and sad

Others suggest contempt

Problem include:

• May see the emotion, but not the cultural reason it was created

• Culture groups may not read faces the same: Americans look at the mouth, Japanese the eyes.

• The debate rages about this one!

Even so this is an interesting video clip: Face Reader

Expectations about gaze also differ

Euroamericans

• Speakers tend not to look at the other until ready to signal the giving up of the speaking role

• Listeners are to look attentively at speaker

African Americans are more likely to feel looking at the speaker is rude (as do South Dakotans if you do not know the person well), but speakers to look at listener.

Author talks about Orthodox Jewish men avoid contact with women (also what I learned as a child in SD)

Winks

Can be read as dominance-assertion signals if men make them to women

But can be a sign of friendliness.

Emotions 2

How to Behave

This is a film that intends to tell the truth, in Vietnam

The filmmaker is dying of cancer and after his funeral, his comrades go

around Vietnam and ask questions:

• What is happiness?

• What is leprosy?

The result is a documentary that begins to reveal the cultural themes of

Vietnam

One example is how victims of leprosy are treated with compassion by

nuns and others

They find that ‘the people’, ‘kindness’, ‘leprosy’ and ‘greatness’ is the

starting point

They conclude that kindness is an essential theme in Vietnam